Allotment/Veg Patch Thread 6 - Weed 'em and Reap!

[bookbook]

Thanks WhoKnowsWhereThe Time GOes for the title of the new thread.
So, we head into summer, praying for sun, gentle rain and no slugs
Everyone welcome to join in and share joys and woes and advice, given freely!
Previous thread here
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/2582241-Allotment-Veg-Patch-Thread-5-The-Diggers-Rest?pg=1

Welcome Wejammin - you really have to make jam with that name! I too suffer with bindweed both at home and at the allotment, I just pull out as much as I can as often as I can, I will never defeat it, but I aim to keep it under control.

Nice to see and hear about harvests, I will have a very few broad beans ready this week I think, but my strawberries (also freshly netted) are some way off ripe.

Half an hour at the plot this morning, just enough time to plant out a random climbing bean that got left at home when I planted the others out, empty and refill slug traps and strimmer all the grassy bits. Glad I went this morning as the rain started mid-afternoon. I took my cucamelons up there, but didn't plant them out, will try to do it tomorrow.

Suffering with almost constant rain still here too - we had a couple of days respite to enable me to do a marathon strim on Friday eve, so about a third of the garden at least now under control. Slugs everywhere...
book, your generous garden advice is second only to your kitchen suggestions - that pasta dish sounds amazing! As do strawb and mascarpone lollies. So much kindliness from others such as Zebra, Shove, Doreen since I have joined here, thank you all. Very inspiring.
The quinces are getting bigger...
I have a few pumpkins, courgette producing a baby fruit in a small pot, and some newly-planted squashes which have shot up. I love the sound of this compost mound for such plants. Is it just loads of garden waste, and would it work with lazybeds as Doreen suggested I do a while ago? Apparently they are a traditional Irish method for optimising fertility for spud growing.

Evening!
hope everyone is well. No plot today
I think Ben Squash started up as weeds and grass in a heap if I remember, but I suspect you can do it almost anyway you like!. One of my near neighbours has done this with their weed heap from last year ( covered in weed membrane and a squash planted in a hole through it.
It rained all morning , quite heavy. Stopped about 1 , then glorious, hot sun - went out and checked everything - mmmm - 1 lettuce seedling left out of 8 - not worth the effort of planting out now.
My aubergines are sulking I think - getting flower buds, but they don't seem to be opening, just dropping off. I have them in big pots by the greenhouse door, so not sure if they are getting cold? This will be my last year of trying to grow them, so they had better pull their finger out pronto...

No plot for me either, rained all morning, then really warm and sunny from later afternoon onwards. I forgot to open the potting shed door today and when I got home from work all the plants that are still in there were wilting.

I've never tried growing aubergines Book - I always imagined they would be like chillis and peppers and need a greenhouse or a very hot summer.

Hoping to fit in half an hour at the plot in the morning, get the cucamelons planted out and do more weeding. I am now thinking maybe I could create a Ben Cucamelon?

Signing in very late this year.
Laughing to see Ben Squashes are still going.

The slugs ate mine. Again. So I amwaiting for pumpkin number 3 to get big enough to outgrow them.

I have taken to burning the weeds on my allotmemt with a weed burner having got off to a slow start this year.

Good harvest of globe artichokes though.

WhoKnows -my third and final go tbh -( they are inside the greenhouse - last year they were further inside) . And the greenhouse is getting hot and humid. My cucamelons are still inside, but the lady who gifted them has some climbing up canes outside at her plot. Says they are doing better than the ones in the greenhouse. They are starting to be a bit of a menace, and the cucumbers are already too big for their boots, and I have lots of small basil plants too....

hello SmallLegs - its a late do for everything this year.
I am not looking forward to going and seeing if I have any squashes left at the plot - I am nurturing 2 spare ones at home , trying to get them to super squash status before planting out!

rambling pumpkin: should I let it ramble over the weed strawberry patch of along the border which is less accessible but a but out of the way?

YYYYYYYY to the kindness of book! She cannot be celebrated enough. Though you're all lovely on here, to be honest.

I think I am going to have first courgettes by the end of the week - HOORAY! I'm doing 3 kinds: defender (green and prolific), atena (yellow, tastier, less prolific), chiaro di nizza (totally uncharted territory for me, came in a packet of 6 for £1 in Poundland). So far the chiaro di nizza are storming away, closely followed by atena, with defender lagging behind. I will report back with a taste test when I can compare all three .

I've had my first strawberry and first raspberry this morning (both singular). Courgettes are some way away, I have flowers, but the slugs are nibbling away. I noticed courgettes the size of marrows on my friend's plot as I passed.

Well, cucamelons are now in, I created a string and cane wigwam for them and will await with interest.

Ahh, this thread is so lovely. So much loveliness.

I have berry news too - my first tayberry! Odd, as I'd have thought they'd be later. My tayberry es are looking good - lots of fruit, still loads of flowers, and humming with bees. They like being in the front garden!

I've harvested and frozen the last of my home broadies, and ripped out the plants. I have a last few tomatoes that have been horribly mistreated in pots, so I may just whack them out in the space from the broadies, and maybe take the last few to the allotment, as I also want to check on my courgettes.

Oh yes -IT'S NOT RAINING TODAY! 1st time in quite a while, I think!

I also want to plant out my cavolo nero.

booky did you give your cucamelons support? They really like to scramble and climb.
blue you can sort of train pumpkins and squashes by using strong sticks stuck into the ground vertically to guide it on its way. The new growth is pretty flexible, so if you stay on top of it, you could maybe have it edging your strawbs?

BenSquash is just a mound of turf and couch grass and clay that I couldn't separate from last year, turned upside down and covered in inside out old compost sacks, held down with sticks and rocks. It's terribly glamorous. I stuck some manure in it and planted squash in the top. It worked! I didn't dismantle it as a) I am horribly lazy, and b) it is always full of my beloved froggers, so I'm using it again this year.

yep that's what I do, guiding it gently around with bamboo sticks.

Afternoon!
Just a quick feet up for 5 minutes - been a busy day. Only had time for a quick trip this afternoon to the plot. Watered, checked ( yes my slugged squash is still hanging on in there). Planted out next lot of baby spinach - (note to self - sow more) - Tied up the sweet peas - they are being deliberately naughty now, not climbing.and weeded in the fruit cage. The redcurrants are just showing pink tinges, so not long. Picked a nice big tub of strawberries.
yay to vegetables coming in at last - let us know how the courgettes fare. shove I tried the atena yellow ones a couple of years ago, and I'm not sure I could tell any taste difference. Keep a close eye though -they seemed very willing to rot at the ends
I don't have any sort of rambling veg at the moment, sadly...
Spotted - your broad beans are done already? Mine are only just getting started. And you gain another for the tayberry !#yof
I haven't given the cucamelons any support, but am going to put them up at the plot on a wigwam I think - just giving them a quick harden off first.

This is one of my new favourite places on the Internet. Thank you for the kindness and knowledge to bookbook, shovetheholly funnyperson et all.

I have not been to the plot since last Thursday as we've been away but as soon as I get home tonight, I'll be grabbing the gloves, hoe and slug pellets and head straight there! Praying for an OK sight.

I have to ask... How come ALL of you are growing cucamelons?! Are they really that amazing?

hiahia - cucamelons are terrible - i've tried growing them 2 years running and failed. i get a couple of tiny leaves and no more. can i convince you of the joys of a wildlife pond (its really a bucket). not sure if its this, or the hedgehog under neighbours shed but i haven't seen hardly any slugs this year...well a few in beer traps.

Hia - did you watch the Great Allotment Challenge on the BBC a couple of years ago? That was the first time I had heard of them, my DD (now 10) watched it avidly and asked me to try growing them. So I sent off for some seeds and tried last year, then when I joined this thread (probably around the same time), others were growing them too.

Last year the plants grew really well, flowered and a few set fruit, but they dropped off when they were only a few mm in diameter and gradually got swallowed up by bindweed. I wasn't going to bother this year but I saw some plug plants a few weeks ago and thought I'd give them another try. Planted them in a bindweed free part of my allotment this time (decided against Mount Cucamelon because they would have been scrambling all over my raspberry canes). But I have still never tasted one.

I did nematodes this yr btw (as usual). 2 doses. Plus sheep wool pellets around plants. And slug pub.
Still heaving with slugs.

thespottedzebra and other chard lovers... One of my chards was about to bolt so I cut it back down. Wondering if you eat the thick main/flowering stalk?!

Juicy.

Evening!
I heard of cucamelons via Spotted a couple of years ago. I had no real wish to grow them, but I was gifted them as little seedlings a few weeks ago. They are doing quite well as we speak....
And we have a lovely fat frog in my tiny bird water pot, but I need the whole of the lot from the frog chorus for my invasion ! I have heard that human/dog hair works well to deter slugs, if any of you have a dog, (or hair! :) )
Now a little puzzle here. I have just been visiting a lovely lady - still growing veg in her back garden at 84. She has given me a seedling in a pot. Lovely , I say - a fuchsia? er no - according to her, she planted a load of victoria plum stones last year after making jam. She had 18 germinate, and I am the proud owner of one of them. I am going to grow it on and see. Could be anything, but not convinced its a plum ....

Slugs are a nightmare. I did a second round of Sluggo last night. Hopefully that will keep them away from my peas and courgettes. They've been enjoying my hostas too.

Broad beans are nearly ready to harvest. The girls are excited about that. Have loads of green strawberries and blackcurrants; now just need some good days of sunlight! DD2 thinks she can pick and eat the green strawberries so I hope they ripen soon.

I put my tomatoes outside yesterday. I had put one plant outside about a week ago and it seems to be doing well so I figured it was fine for the rest to join. Have a few little green tomatoes.

Re my bolted spinach: even the tiny plants have seeds on them! Will continue to use for as long as possible. Also thinking of growing some in a pot on the windowsill.

looks like basil

That's what I thought but quite a few things do in the early days. If it were basil it would smell like basil.

Morning!
Grouchy - the spinach at the plot has a few bolted plants, the little ones mainly, and I have hardly started picking it, thats why must get some more sown-( and probably have them at home in a pot )
Hows the lemon tree doing?
Mystery seedling - one of my first thoughts was basil, It was sat on the table next to me so as I was chatting with her I rubbed the leaf a bit - not basil. May have to run a sweepstake :)

hmm is the stem bendy? like a tree sapling or hollow and hairy like a weed?

Just had to pop back in - said lovely lady rang me a little while ago. One of her seedlings threw out a flower today , and its what I feared -a weed -namely willow herb :)